Letters, or: An Epistolary Mystery
by shakespeare's sister
Summary: Snape, the dour Potions master, begins to receive surprising anonymous letters, and using his considerable intelligence sets about discovering their author.  Meanwhile he is being befriended by one Professor Lupin, also teaching at Hogwarts.   RLSS
1. Chapter 1

I've pretty much finished writing this, it will be seven chapters (and, I am intending, an extra chap of -unfriendly smut which will get posted on my LJ, I'll link to it on my profile page when it's there - please be forgiving as I've never written proper PWP filth before!) and I'll be posting as and when. No doubt some reviews will speed me up... It's to a small extent an AU as it's set in an unspecified and Harry Potterless time frame, in a Hogwarts in which both Snape and Lupin teach, and in which there is not currently a war.

Letters are in italics.

* * *

><p><em>Knowing you as I do, in some ways very well and in others not at all, I can only make an educated guess as to what you will do with this letter.<em>

_My prediction is that you'll incinerate it with an exasperated flick of your wand. Perhaps you'll regret it a little, you might think later that you would like to reread it. Most likely you won't. Most likely you'll dismiss it as the fevered ramblings of an unbalanced mind. I can assure you that my mind is not unbalanced, though. It's probably working better than it has for quite some years._

_I can imagine your face as you're reading this, thinking _what is the point? _Very well, I will stop prevaricating before you feel compelled to give up reading._

_I'm writing because I'm too much of a coward to tell you to your face that I love you._

Professor Snape sat up at this. He turned the parchment over but that was all. The anonymous writer had had his or her say, and had neglected to sign off. He considered acting upon the suggestion that the writer had made, that he would burn the letter, but agreed that it was possible he would regret such hastiness.

So, what to make of it? A prank? Very well, but it did not read entirely like a prank. If it was a practical joke, the joker had hit a subtle and rather credible note. Unlikely as that seemed, knowing the calibre of the minds that he taught and who were the most likely authors, it was surely more believable than that someone had been watching him and loving him and biting their tongue.

Still, the thought of someone coming before him, trembling and tongue-tied, to tell him that they loved him made him laugh out loud. A letter would be much the most sensible course if one wished to escape hex-free.

He did not feel confident of any chance of success in discovering the author's identity from the letter; it was surely carefully concealed. A prankster would not wish to be discovered, nor would a lover - not immediately, at any rate. That would surely destroy the whole point of an initial secret advance.

He dropped the letter on his desk and sat back in his chair, legs and arms crossed. Would he even attempt to uncover the author's name? That would likely be playing into their hands.

He shook his head, swept the letter under a pile of other paperwork and returned to marking the fifth-years' pathetic attempts at essay-writing.

* * *

><p>Snape had, if not forgotten exactly, then mentally filed as a low priority, the letter he had received. Life proceeded much as usual, inching along in slow hours punctuated by painful stints at the staff table for meals. He prided himself on the fact that his behaviour and demeanour were entirely unchanged by the mysterious epistle, and fleetingly thought that its author must be at least a little disappointed.<p>

After one particularly excruciating dinner, at which some of the teachers had a sprightly conversation about their love lives, he escaped and swept down to his rooms in the dungeons. The thunderous look he wore slid off his face when he let himself into his study and he noticed the brown owl standing on his desk and drinking wine from a half-finished goblet.

'What are you doing here?' he asked the owl, then mentally told himself off for talking to a bird.

He stroked its feathery head as he unfastened the letter - same paper as the previous one - from its leg. It hooted a couple of times in a happy sort of way before taking off.

He unfolded the letter and sat himself down.

_I of all people should know how difficult it can be to trust. You gave no indication whatsoever of having received a rather extraordinary letter - congratulations. I suppose you put it down to a practical joke. A reasonable thought, though I can assure you that it was entirely heartfelt._

_I have written again - not because I want to irritate you, or want anything from you that you would not freely give - because I want to convince you that I meant every word I wrote before, and I mean every word this time._

_Honestly, I know I would be an awful lot happier if I could satisfy myself with some other person. At least, it would be easier. Still, you cannot choose, can you, Severus? I would not have chosen you, knowing my pitiful chances of you returning my feelings, but there you have it._

_I can't stop myself loving you._

Snape smoothed the letter flat on the desk and read it again. Surely this is not a prank. Someone - someone he knows quite well, by the sounds of things - is declaring her love for him through the medium of letters.

'How bizarre,' he said to the empty office, and then remembered Lupin would need his Wolfsbane in the next couple of days, and that he ought to start making it. He shoved the letter amongst the papers, determined not to think about it more than he absolutely had to, and got brewing.

* * *

><p>A couple of days later, as he put the finishing touches to the potion that stopped the werewolf rampaging around the castle each month, the brown owl arrived again.<p>

It landed on the windowsill and hooted. It seemed quite friendly. He put his ladle down carefully, turned down the flame under the cauldron with a swoop of his wand, and went to greet the owl.

A couple of minutes later, the owl was flying off into the gloaming crunching an owl nut that he had found luckily in a pocket and he was reading the latest instalment of the strange person's declaration of love with an eagerness that he would have denied.

_I hope that you were expecting this letter now. One may be a one off, but two seems like the start of something. And of course three begins to look like a definite pattern. I cannot say how long this will continue, but now I have started, I find I quite like it._

_Do you like it, I wonder? I have no way of knowing. You are so very practised at appearing inscrutable. I should say that even were I to be present when you read one of these letters I could not tell how you felt about it. It is something that you are proud of, I should think._

_I think I said last time that I wished I had a different object of my affections. That was true, though perhaps impolite. But you must see that? I _never _know what you're thinking. It makes loving you quite frightening at times._

_One of the things I am most frightened of is you finding out who I am. You are far braver than I have ever been, but then, you are far braver than almost anyone._

The author was right about that, no matter how unreadable he might find Snape. He wondered briefly why he did not feel quite so pleased with himself for hiding the advent of these confusing letters any more. The last sentence though… he felt a little surge in his throat and realised he was pleased, that someone had recognised the sacrifices he had made. But who on earth?

He thought for a moment, then tapped the paper with his wand and muttered '_Specialis Revelio'_. Nothing, unsurprisingly. '_Pia pium_.' Nothing. '_Enigmato'_. Nothing. '_De Arcanum_.' Nothing. He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the workbench, then jumped as someone knocked on the door.

It was a polite knock.

He stuffed the letter hastily in the pocket of his robes, put on his best sneer, and opened the door with his wand.

'Lupin.'

'Hello Severus,' said the werewolf as he crossed the room. 'How are you?'

Snape did not reply, preferred to demonstrate with his expression what he thought of such a foolish line of questioning.

'I've come for the potion,' said Lupin, who did not seem at all nonplussed by Snape's rudeness.

'What else?'

Snape ladled a good amount into a stray goblet and shoved it across the bench to Lupin, who picked it up and knocked it back, replacing the goblet and grimacing horribly.

'Thank you very much. It's very good of you, doing this for me. I only wish there was some way I could repay you.'

Snape shrugged uncomfortably.

'Unfortunately for you, there is no skill or item that you possess which could come any way towards compensating me.'

'No, of course. Sorry to disappoint you.'

The werewolf turned and left the room, closing the door carefully after him, and Snape turned back to his intriguing letter.

* * *

><p>Over the next couple of days, Snape exercised his considerable ingenuity to finding out who was writing to him so secretly. He had brewed all the potions he could think of that might possibly reveal secrets, but it had just left him with soggy and stained letters. He dried them carefully in his airing cupboard before trying another battery of spells and charms but, apart from inadvertently setting one of them on fire with a spark from his wand when he lost his temper for the twenty-third time, nothing happened.<p>

'In the name of all that's magical!' he shouted as he doused the flames.

He did not stop to think why exactly he was so intent on finding the letters' author. Part of it was pride, of course, that he did not care to be out-magicked by someone else. Part of it was curiosity. Who found him so attractive that they would write letters and take such cautions to remain an enigma? And part of it… well, he wondered if there was any possibility that he could feel the same way. He had been alone for so very long…

When the next letter arrived, he petted the brown owl and, to his surprise, found his fingers were quivering with excitement as he untied the letter.

_I do not know why I continue to do this. It is utterly pointless. No doubt these letters are now ashes in the grate of your fire. And by remaining anonymous, I ensure that the tiny chance I have of finding happiness with you does not change. If anything, it probably worsens. Who could love such a coward?_

_But oh, Severus, now I have started, I cannot stop._

_I love the fire in your eyes when you come across a problem that intrigues you (how I hope these letters light such a fire). I love your bravery - but then you already know that. I love the skill of your hands, chopping and stirring, creating such incredible potions. I love the quickness of your mind. I love the rare, so rare, occasions when you find something that amuses you and your lips twitch like you are holding back a wave of laughter. I would love to hear you laugh. I would love to make you laugh. I would love you to touch me with those clever hands. I would love to find out if that tongue is really so sharp._

Snape sucked in a gasp of air. Things had taken an interesting turn. He hunted around for a quill and a spare piece of parchment and started to make a list.

* * *

><p>The next few days, whenever he had a moment and could be sure of not being overlooked, Snape pulled out the parchment and worked on it, added names and comments as he saw fit.<p>

Potentials (in no particular order)

-Students. Please the gods, no. Maybe Harriet Dax or Hermione Granger.  
>-Bay Hooch. Possible, but not her usual style. Would have been more blunt. Sporty type. Also I understood she preferred the company of women, specifically…<br>-Artemis Sinistra. See above. However, more likely to have written like that. We have a civil relationship (rare).  
>-Pomona Sprout. Prefers the company of flora to humans. Does not appear to have much use for my opinions on growing. Would send me a useful plant, not a letter.<br>-Poppy Pomfrey Just seems extraordinarily unlikely. However, I cannot write her off completely.  
>-Minerva McGonagall. Entirely wrong. Also, wrong house, and clearly has been nurturing a passion for the Headmaster for years.<br>-Sybil Trelawney. Incapable of writing direct and attractive prose. Appears to prefer Lupin.  
>-Charity Burbage. Unable to fall in love with a former follower of the Dark Lord. However the letters appear to regret the choice of me. A distinct possibility.<br>-Septima Vector. Perhaps. Sensible woman, though.

He reached the end of the list for the hundredth time and chewed thoughtfully on his quill. Although he had never met another wizard with the same propinquities as himself, he had acknowledged something like them on his list already. He dipped the quill in the bottle of ink.

-Rubeus Hagrid. _Extremely _unlikely to write such a letter.  
>-Filius Flitwick. Has a way with words. Potential.<br>-The Headmaster. A thousand times no.  
>-Remus Lupin. Probably capable of stringing a coherent sentence together when not forced to speak it aloud. Still besotted with Black ?his lover?<br>-Argus Filch.

He shuddered.

Of course, there were others, outside the castle. He had the feeling that this correspondent was within Hogwarts, but he was loathe to rely on instinct with no evidence to back it up. He did not have many acquaintances who he saw at all regularly…

-Lucius. History... However he surely only loves himself.  
>-Narcissa. Ditto.<br>-Rosmerta. I cannot imagine in what universe she would be attracted to me. She prefers brawny and brainless. However, friendly. That is her job.  
>-Master Dickens from the Hogwarts bookshop. Hates me, ancient.<p>

Likelies

-Burbage  
>-Vector<br>-Poppy  
>-Flitwick<br>?Rosmerta

He chewed the quill again. A brief enough list to do some detecting, perhaps. He looked at the names again then looked up with a curl to his lip. Of course, there was always the possibility it was someone entirely outside Hogwarts. He did not venture out very often, but someone potentially unhinged enough to write such things to him could easily fancy themselves in love after one chance meeting.

* * *

><p><em>Dear Severus,<em>

_I feel fairly safe that you have not yet discovered my identity. I wonder what I hope to gain from keeping my name a secret. Perhaps I hope I can inveigle my way past your defences on the page, and that once you see me face to face you will be less inclined to hex me into a heap of smoking robes. Silly, I suppose, but I can't think of any other way._

_You would not be the man you are, the man I love, if you could easily and happily trust me, but all the same I am afraid of your reaction to me. I think you will be disappointed if you ever find out who I am, and that's leaving aside the possibility that you cherish some feeling for someone and you hope that they are your correspondent. I am sorry, if that is the case. I did not mean for this to hurt you. I want rather to protect you from hurt, if you can believe that. I know you don't need protecting, but that doesn't stop me wanting._

_Thank you for being kind to the owl. She seems to like taking my letters to you._

When Snape looked up, he was almost shocked to find himself alone in his dark office. While he had read the letter he had felt as though someone was near, someone who loved him, and he was surprised to find himself bereft. He folded the letter up and put it with the others, now tied together in a bundle and hidden in a heavily charmed drawer in his desk. Then he pulled out his list.

_Burbage, Vector, Poppy, Flitwick._

Who would want to protect him, he wondered. Poppy maybe, and Flitwick seemed absurdly fond of him…

For the first time, he allowed himself to wonder who it was that he actually wanted the writer to be, and the result made his hand shake so much that he screwed the list up and stuffed it in his pocket. He left his gloomy office and did some impromptu patrolling of the lantern-lit corridors. His point-taking that night was so ferocious that even the Slytherin hourglass was looking depleted the next morning.


	2. Chapter 2

So, part two. Hope it is satisfactory and there are not too many typos!

* * *

><p>Snape was sitting reluctantly in the staff room, sipping at a cup of coffee and waiting for a teachers' meeting to begin. He was wearing his customary severe black and his most threatening sneer, which made most of his colleagues steer a wide berth around him. Not Lupin though. He had always been good at seeking out people who he considered needed company.<p>

'Hello Severus,' he said, and took a seat on the closer end of the sofa near Snape's armchair.

'Lupin.'

'How are you today?'

Snape looked at him irascibly.

'The usual,' he snapped, and drank some coffee.

'I was thinking of wandering over to the Three Broomsticks tonight for a pint or so. I wondered if you fancied joining me. I've had an interesting book through about the crossover between potions and muggle chemistry through the ages and I'd like to ask some things and discuss it with someone with a quick mind who is likely to know the answers.'

'Why don't you ask the Headmaster?'

Lupin laughed. 'Whenever I go out with him, I always end up absolutely hammered. I should think he knows all about - well, everything - but I wouldn't remember anything he'd told me the next day, and I'd need a very strong hangover potion just to get out of bed.'

'I'm not here to be your encyclopaedia, Lupin.'

'I know that. I just thought it might be, er, fun.'

'I suspect our ideas of fun may differ markedly.'

McGonagall chose that moment to begin speaking about the fifth years' impending OWLs and Snape was left wondering why, when he thought that a quiet evening with Lupin talking about potions sounded rather soothing, he had managed to both refuse the invitation and be rude doing so. He risked a glance at Lupin.

The man was sitting, perfectly tranquil, watching Minerva with a dreamy look on his face which suggested he was not attending to the Deputy Headmistress.

Snape renewed his glower before breaking off for a few moments to drink his coffee. He decided to take the opportunity to surreptitiously study the people on his shortlist.

Professor Burbage appeared to be listening wholeheartedly to the speech, as was Filius Flitwick. Vector was drawing on a scrap of parchment in front of her and muttering to herself. Snape looked closer but saw only a tangle of lines and strings of what appeared to be calculations. Poppy also seemed distracted but she was not looking anywhere near Snape - probably thinking about her patients, he decided.

None of them seemed at all likely and Snape speculated as to whether he needed to rethink his shortlist. He glanced around the room. No one was watching him, no one cut their eyes away guiltily. It was as if he was not even present. He wondered for a moment whether the letters were all some fantastic dream. The whole thing just seemed so very unlikely. He scowled, and noticed Lupin was still gazing off into the middle distance like some halfwit adolescent.

* * *

><p>When the next letter arrived on the eager leg of the little owl, he was ready. He untied the cords with fumbling fingers and before the owl had the chance to take off, he fastened another letter in its place.<p>

'Take that to whoever just sent you here,' he told the owl, and it twittered like it understood before flying away into the night.

_I wonder whether you have made any headway in guessing my identity. If I know you (and I'm not sure that I do), you'll have realised that magic cannot get you any further and you will have begun to guess amongst the people of your acquaintance. I wonder if I am on your list. I would give you clues but I'm afraid of your cleverness._

_Still, there is one thing about me that it is only fair to tell you. This is a gamble, but people cannot change their essential natures, and this is important. I am a wizard._

_Do I shock you? I have no idea. Maybe by telling you that I have sabotaged any chance I may have of finding happiness with you, but of course you cannot help that, any more than I can help the rising and setting of the sun or the moon._

_Dear Severus, I am growing tired of this cowardly way of communicating with you. I think I must make up my mind. Do I stop, or do I continue and allow you to know who I am? I don't know what to do._

Somewhere in the castle, someone else was reading a letter from Snape.

_To my anonymous correspondent,_

_I did initially think this was a prank, but it has gone on too long with no repercussions and seems too heartfelt for it to be anything other than real._

_I wanted to let you know that I am no closer to finding out who you are than I was the day I received your first letter. I wanted to congratulate you on your magic._

_I also wanted to tell you that I understand why you have remained anonymous. It is unlikely that I would react favourably to a person telling me to my face what you have told me in your letters. You must appreciate that I perceive it unlikely that anyone could have such feelings for me, and I would likely respond negatively._

_However, you must understand that this can go no further with the situation as it at the moment. It is not your gender that is the reason, but by keeping yourself hidden you stop me from telling you how I would respond to your advances, were I to know your identity. It is your decision. I am hamstrung._

_The owl you use is most agreeable._

_Severus Snape._

* * *

><p>So his mysterious correspondent was a man. Snape was unable to completely suppress a small thrill at this. The correct sex, at least. The fact that the writer had realised just how dead-ended was this method of conducting a relationship was interesting, as well. Did that mean he could expect an unveiling in the near future? He tried to ignore the churning anxiety in his stomach as to how he would respond.<p>

He continued to observe his fellow teachers closely, but could make out nothing that might be construed as a clue. He had also made an attempt at apologising to Lupin.

'Your book about muggles and potions sounds interesting,' he had said in a quiet moment at dinner.

'It is,' Lupin agreed. His manner was cool, but when he reached for the pepper pot his hand was shaking.

'I do not enjoy the Three Broomsticks.'

'Oh, really?'

'Yes.'

'I quite enjoy it, myself. Madam Rosmerta is a fine woman.'

Snape shot a narrow glance in his direction. He could have sworn the werewolf would not be attracted to the Broomsticks' curvy barmaid.

'I find her full of tattle and coquettishness,' he said.

'My goodness, someone with the nerve to flirt with you, Severus? They must be braver than I,' said Lupin mildly.

Snape felt rather silly and tongue-tied, and he concentrated on his plate for a while.

'The sloe gin is excellent,' he finally said, apropos of nothing.

'It is.'

'It's even better than my private stores. Pomona gave me her spare sloes last year. It is a muggle drink, but none the worse for that.'

'I'd like to try it.'

'Mmph.'

Reflecting back, Snape felt the exchange could have gone better, but then again, it could easily have been much worse.

Still, breaking the ice with Lupin (or rather, allowing it to be broken) was not getting him any further in the matter of real import. He did not allow the mystery of the letters to intrude too far upon his daily life, but when he had a spare moment during school hours, or when he was being ignored at dinner, occasionally when he was brewing, and last thing at night before he fell asleep, they were on his mind. He could not remember his life as it had been before he knew there was someone who cared for him.

He was sitting at his desk, staring distractedly at his list with the letters in an untidy heap but his left hand when there was tentative knock. He swept all the papers into an empty drawer, walked over and opened it.

'Lupin.'

'Hello Severus,' said the werewolf. He was clutching a book and a large bar of chocolate, and wearing the smile of someone who may well be living the final seconds of their life. 'I wondered if I could possibly come in. I've brought, well, you can see. Please don't hex me into a heap of smoking robes.'

Snape stepped to the side and let a Marauder cross his threshold.

* * *

><p>Snape woke up the next morning and stared at the ceiling. Now he had two strange matters to ponder; the letters, and a faint lessening of the enmity between he and one of his schoolboy enemies. He had no time to regret his decision to let in Lupin and talk about alchemy and potion-brewing and herbology however, because the brown owl was sitting on his windowsill.<p>

'Hello,' he said, and untied the letter. He had started to keep a bag of owl treats near his person at all times, and he retrieved one from his bedside table. The owl crunched, showing no inclination to fly away, and he read his letter.

_Severus,_

_Thank you for writing back to me. It was very pleasant of you. I also like this owl; she is awfully sweet. I am glad you understand my decision to write to you like this, and I thank you for your compliment regarding my magic._

_Every thing you write is true, and I know better than anyone the futility of my actions, although perhaps they are not so futile, since you did write back to me._

_The trouble is, I do not know what else to say. I don't want to repeat myself for fear of boring you._

_I wonder how far you have got in your detective work._

_I asked the owl to wait in case you wished to write back again._

Snape looked at the owl.

'What should I do?' he asked it.

It stood very still, its head slightly to one side, and did not offer any help.

He sighed, and retrieved a quill.

_Thank you for your letter. I find I enjoy reading them. I also enjoy seeing your owl._

_My detective work, as you call it, has been greatly advanced by your revelation of your sex. I find there are only a couple of real candidates._

_Other than that, I do not know what else to say._

He tied it to the brown owl, who seemed to look at him disdainfully.

'What?' he asked her. 'You think that was a poor attempt at a letter? I cannot deny that I agree, but what else do I have to say to this person?'

If owls can shrug, the brown owl did before she took off through the open window.

Snape stretched skinny white legs out of bed and into waiting slippers, and wrapped his dressing gown securely around his middle. He padded over to his desk, retrieved the letters and leafed through them once again. No, no clues, other than the revelation that his correspondent was a wizard. He sat back in his chair and thought.

A man. At least reasonable intelligence. Shy? Or merely circumspect, diffident. Previous bad experiences, or simply open-eyed about how far he would get with Snape? A piercing sense of self-awareness, crossing over into self-critical. And of course, bizarrely, attracted to a bad-tempered ugly wizard with a very chequered past. Who on earth did he know who fitted that description? But then, did he know anyone well enough to perceive the truth about them behind their public face?

'This is ridiculous,' he snapped, and shoved the letters back into their drawer before stalking off to get dressed, so angry and preoccupied that his buttons took him a full ten minutes.

* * *

><p>'Hello, Severus,' said Lupin, with that infuriatingly mild smile.<p>

'Lupin,' Snape said with a small inclination of the head.

'I enjoyed myself the other night. I hope you did too.'

Snape grunted, a response he felt was entirely adequate, causing the damn werewolf to smile his polite smile.

Polite? He had definitely smiled in a different way when they had talked in Snape's office.

'It was pleasant,' Snape admitted, as though someone had fastened a fishing hook in his belly and was drawing this honest response out of his very soul.

'I'm glad,' Lupin said, and he smiled again, the smile he was supposed to have.

'You have a competent understanding of the uses of _conium maculatum_,' Snape said.

'For you to say that, I must have,' said Lupin, and flashed that grin again. 'And you have a real feeling for Keats - I must confess I was surprised.'

'Muggles generally write the best poetry. There is so little they understand that their writing seems more magical.'

'We talked about that - they do know a lot. They have this thing they call "science".'

'Their science may explain the song of the nightingale, but it cannot describe it.'

'Oh, I agree. As you know… well, I let my tongue run away with me before. If you were listening, you understand.'

'I listened,' said Snape 'I think you know it.'

'I had hoped… but not everyone is interested. And besides, I do get carried away.'

'You say so little normally, just pleasantries to allow social conversation to flow, that when you speak of things which mean more, people listen.'

'I'm not sure they do, but I'm glad you did.'

'Despite my reputation, I can appreciate the thoughts of others if they are not simply recycled rubbish from _Potions for Beginners _or _Brewing Up! _but are the well-considered opinions of thoughtful individuals.'

Lupin looked quite pink and pleased at that, and seemed a little confused. He muttered some excuse or other related to work and bustled off, dropping a book en route and then dropping another as he bent to pick up the first.

Snape was left in the corridor looking after him and wondering why compliments were so much more effective than insults at ridding himself of the wolf's company, before sweeping off down to the dungeons where twenty trembling first years awaited him.

Today they were in luck; their volatile professor had more pressing concerns than terrorising their brewing efforts.

Snape flicked his wand and, as a piece of chalk began to inscribe instructions on the blackboard, he said, 'Today, in pairs, you will making a simple pain-killing draught, following the steps to the letter. At the end of the lesson you will put a vial of your potion on the front desk and then clear away. You may begin.'

With that, he sat down and pulled his list of potential candidates from his file. He had already neatly scored through the women on there and now he continued to annotate them.

-Rubeus Hagrid. _Extremely _unlikely to write such a letter. Almost certainly not.  
>-Filius Flitwick. Has a way with words. Potential. Much more likely to present me with charms than write such letters. A rather sudden departure after many years as colleagues.<br>-The Headmaster. A thousand times no.  
>-Remus Lupin. <em>Certainly <em>capable of stringing together a coherent sentence. Very likely still besotted with Black.  
>-Argus Filch. In the name of all that's magical, no.<br>-Lucius. History… However he surely loves only himself. Incapable of such feelings. Would _never _write a love letter.  
>-Master Dickens from the Hogwarts bookshop. Hates me, ancient. Loves only his books <em>vis <em>his refusal to sell me first edition of Unthank's _Herbal._

He stroked his chin with his pen, and decided in the interests of completeness to add a further entry:

-Male student. None spring to mind; still a possibility.

None of these seemed at all credible, and yet who else was there within the castle who could be described as male? The letters surely must be a prank after all…

The thought that after all there was no one in the castle, watching him and loving him, stung more than he could have imagined and he swept from the classroom and into his store cupboard where no one could watch him at all. He stared into the spotty old mirror that hung above the cracked sink, hating the harsh planes of his face, the insolent jut of his nose, the threaded creases around hard black eyes. How absurd that he could have been taken in. How absurd that he could believe someone cared for him.


	3. Chapter 3

The students were of course the first to note that Professor Snape, never a gentle-tempered man, had become quite alarmingly enraged of late. After a few days, the realisation filtered up to the teachers as well. Snape generally kept himself to himself in the staff room anyway, and had always been virtually silent at meals, and so it took a little longer, but after he had given Trelawney a public tongue-lashing that was quite deranged in its ferocity, they began to talk amongst themselves.

Professor Lupin did not take part in the speculation and indignation that began to circulate but, after he heard the usually very proper Minerva McGonagall use a picturesque and very obscene Scottish epithet about the potions master he decided to intervene.

He had no inflated ideas of his own influence with Snape but he hoped that, whatever may be the cause for his foul mood, some gentle words of sense might somehow filter through and perhaps return to him his usual state of barely (but just about) controlled spleen.

And so he made his way down into the dungeons one afternoon, just after classes had finished for the day. He had given the matter some thought and decided that the relatively neutral ground of the potions lab might be a better place than in Snape's own quarters. Even though he had amiably occupied them barely a week before, the change in Snape would most likely mean that he was unwelcome in the other man's territory.

He knocked on the closed classroom door, tentatively at first and then harder.

'I said come in!' roared a very irate voice, and he steeled himself and walked in.

'Hello Severus,' he said in his hoarse voice, and coughed.

'Lupin, I beg you to tell me that some student is desperately ill and in need of a life-saving potion, or that the castle is on fire, or that the Dark Lord himself is standing outside Hogwarts' gates because I can think of no other reason that you might be here bothering me when I clearly have work to do!'

Lupin winced, then thanked heaven the potions master's eyes had not left the parchment on his desk because no doubt that would have irritated him even more.

'I'm afraid I can't tell you any of those things. I came to see you because I'd promised you this,' he waved an anthology of Romantic poets vaguely in the air, 'and I thought you might have forgotten.'

Snape was forced to look up. He noticed the book, and it seemed to take the wind out of his sails somewhat.

'Ah, yes, muggle poetry, how useful that is for a wizard potions teacher.'

He managed something of his normal sneer but was nowhere near achieving the vitriolic hiss of his first words.

'Poetry's not necessarily supposed to be useful. I mean, I think it is, but that's not the point. The only point is beauty, and I can't imagine anyone has so much beauty in their life that they could not appreciate a bit more.'

Lupin continued to stand just inside the door until Snape lost patience, and strode up to take the book. His movements spoke of anger so great that Lupin prepared himself to have the book snatched, but at the last moment Snape took it from him gently and flicked carefully through the leaves. A few seconds of calm, then he seemed to come to himself and shut it with a clap before stalking back to his desk.

'Severus, I can't imagine you'd ever want to be friends, but I had thought we were becoming - friendly. You're normally so inscrutable but now… has something happened?'

Snape looked up, his face white and set.

'Get out, wolf,' he spat, and Lupin got out.

* * *

><p>That evening, Snape got another letter.<p>

_Dear Severus,_

_I understand things have been difficult for you recently, although I do not understand why. I believe, why I'm not sure, that your recent anger is related to these letters. I of course do not know the reason, but if you wish me to stop writing to you, I will._

_I cannot stop myself without your say-so, though, because it would mean the end of hope for me (and maybe you?)._

Snape snarled and crumpled the letter in one hand. Of course some stupid joker would stop him wanting the letters!

On impulse, he grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill.

_Whoever you are,_

_This prank has gone on long enough._

_S Snape_

He attached it gently to the owl and drank deeply from his glass of sloe gin. Hopefully this would banish this mysterious letter-writer. He had no desire to let this joke continue.

He drank more gin and let the burn spread down his throat. Nobody could make a fool out of him, no matter how much he - he would not allow his dreams to let someone mock him.

But, before he fell down on his bed unconscious, another letter arrived by the familiar owl.

_Dear Severus,_

_I thought we had decided that this could not be a prank. Still, I cannot blame your caution. Some of the Hogwarts students are extraordinarily inventive, and short of revealing myself, I cannot reassure you. But still, I will try. I wish I could soothe your fears and your anger. I wish - but… but…_

_What I feel frightens me. I am not used to such a total surrendering of control. I hope you get closer to identifying me._

Snape thought briefly about throwing this missive in the fire, but of course he did not. He read it again and again, and each time he believed more that this strange and cowardly person was writing their true feelings… _his _true feelings.

_X,_

_You cannot blame me for my reticence, and my unwillingness to believe. I have been deceived before. And besides, you have no way of knowing whether I could ever care for you when you keep your identity from me._

He fed the owl a couple of owl nuts before fastening his letter to its leg and refilling his glass.

_Dear Severus,_

_I blame you for nothing. I blame myself. But your words… you suggest that there is someone you care for, someone that, if they were writing these letters to you, you would be only to pleased to give yourself to._

_Of course I hope and wish that that is me, but if not, I only hope that this person will treat you as you deserve, and show you all the love you have earned over the years._

_Again, I love you._

Snape read this last missive with a curl in his lip and swept the night's correspondence into his desk drawer. He scrawled a few words:

_Stop writing to me,_

sent it with the little owl, and then carried on drinking sloe gin until he could barely remember his name, before throwing himself into bed and sleeping almost immediately.

His correspondent was not so lucky. For him, a sleepless night of worry beckoned; a night full of curses for the timid man he had become.

* * *

><p>If someone had suggested to Snape even a couple of months ago that he would set his heart on an anonymous writer of letters declaring love, he would have sneered in their face. But now that he had decided that the writer was simply a prankster with an unusual sense of humour, he felt bereft. Every time some little hope sprang in him he crushed it down with cold logic. A bad tempered, ugly, ageing ex-Death Eater was impossible to love, he would tell himself, and the hope would wither away to be replaced with a knot in his throat that alcohol and sleeping potions would not allay.<p>

The letters had stopped. He could not decide if this made him feel better or worse. He had after all commanded the writer to cease, and it would be as well to resign himself to a future alone, but he missed the thrill that nothing could suppress when the owl arrived at his study window.

His unfortunate pupils were silent and nervous in his lessons, and his colleagues were giving him a wide berth, even Lupin. Perhaps that was the most infuriating part of the whole business. He found that he missed the Defence teacher's small attentions - cups of coffee, friendly greetings, the smile he gave when he was happy or even just being polite. He found himself wishing that he might hear that quiet tap on his door one evening. In fact, when he considered it carefully, he would prefer Lupin to restart his small overtures of kindness than to regain his former belief in his letters' veracity.

The days continued to go by, days that were the same as they had been before the first letter, but although before the loneliness and boredom had been tolerable, now they stretched out emptily in front of him with no possible happiness in sight. He started to wonder how he could bear to live through another half century like that.

It was inevitable really that he should crack.

He unearthed one of the few remaining bottles of sloe gin and a volume of Aphra Behn he had been planning to lend to Lupin before. He was about to leave the room when he had a sudden moment of inspiration and found a bar of chocolate in his desk before setting off into the gloomy evening corridors.

When he reached Lupin's study drawer, his hands were shaking so badly that he was worried he would drop the gin. Before he had a chance to change his mind, he knocked on the door and tried to slow his breathing down.

A familiar face with familiar glasses and familiar tousled hair answered the door. Lupin looked slightly surprised but he quickly pasted his polite smile on.

'I have brought a peace offering,' Snape said quickly, and thrust his gifts at Lupin before turning on his heel and making to walk off.

'Hey, Severus, hey! Where are you going?'

He spun back round and reluctantly walked back to the door, then forced himself to meet Lupin's face. He didn't look angry but equally not overjoyed.

'What's this peace offering for then?'

Snape reddened.

'I used unforgivable language towards you. I wanted to tell you I'm sorry.' He felt a bit startled. Apparently apologising was not as difficult as he had thought, and the grin that lit up Lupin's face made him feel it was certainly worth doing.

'Come in then, come in. It's a bit of a mess I'm afraid, but you'll have to help me drink this - hang on -' he put the gifts down on his paper-covered desk and shifted heaps of books and more paper from the two shabby armchairs by the fire with a flick of his wand. Another spell and two mismatched sherry glasses appeared.

Lupin poured out the gin, snapped the chocolate and gave Snape half, and settled down in a chair. Snape, outwardly calm but inside quite ridiculously happy, sat down in the other and barely wondered when it was that Lupin's many apologies for their school days had finally been accepted.

* * *

><p>Hogwarts breathed a collective sigh of relief when its inhabitants realised that Snape was back to his old self. He continued to set reams of homework and was critical of his students' potion-brewing, but he no longer reduced at least one person to tears in every lesson or bit his colleagues' heads off for asking him to pass the pepper at dinner.<p>

Somehow, too, he had seemed to fall into something like friendship with Lupin. They would meet in each others' rooms to drink and read and, sometimes, to talk. The conversations initially were about muggle books and magical theory, but over time they broadened to include the odd piece of school gossip and, very occasionally, Lupin would drop something slightly personal about his own history. By common consent they avoided talking about the rise of Voldemort and the war or their long-past school days, but gradually Snape began to put together a picture of Lupin's life over the two decades since they had seen each other.

Lupin did not complain, or fish for sympathy or compliments, but over time something like compassion for him grew in Snape. After all, there were plenty of people still in society who had been on the wrong side during the war, but there were no werewolves, at least no known ones. The unfairness of the laws of the ministry that governed half-breeds struck Snape anew and he realised how grateful Lupin was to finally have a chance at a normal life and a proper job. He barely noticed the gradual melting away of his long-held prejudices or the fact that he no longer thought of Lupin, even to himself, as 'the wolf'.

Stranger than even the thawing of any enmity between them was the slow ebbing away of the self-doubt Snape had carried with him for as long as he could remember. Since he was very young he could not imagine anyone liking him for his own sake; he had always ascribed others' friendliness to motives like power or mockery.

This had a quite profound effect on him, quite apart from his self-esteem. He began once more to believe in the letters.

He would get the bundle out from his desk drawer and spread all the letters out, reading them in chronological order or randomly, at least once a day. He would do his best to be logical, and take up a quill and parchment to note down clues, but would always end up, chin propped in hand, staring at the timid black handwriting of either his prankster or his secret lover.

As much as he enjoyed Lupin's company, and as tolerable as he found the remainder of his term-time life, the letters fascinated him or, more specifically, the idea of love fascinated him.

He would take trips up to the Owlery in the dead of night and visit the little brown owl, stroking it and feeding it owl nuts, talking to it in a low voice as if it could somehow reply to him with the answers he sought.

One day, out of the blue and rather drunkenly, he brought it up with Lupin. Obliquely of course, but somehow there was no hiding the facts.

'You should write again,' Lupin told him gravely, and that was all the prompt he needed.

_Dear X,_

_I owe you an apology, I think. I assumed this was a joke but the way in which you have responded to my request makes me think that I was wrong. I apologise for doubting you but I have never considered myself lovable._

_I enjoyed your letters when they came, and I miss your correspondence._

He tied the letter to the owl's leg and whispered instructions that the owl, blinking its yellow eyes, seemed to understand. It took off into the night sky and Snape wandered tipsily back to his room in the dungeons.

* * *

><p>When he woke the next morning with a hangover, he had forgotten sending the letter. It hit him in the shower with a rush of embarrassed regret so strong that his legs, already unsteady, felt like they would give way completely. He sat down in the shower and put his heavy head in his hands.<p>

He might have sat like that indefinitely but for the impatient hooting he heard in his study. His head jerked up and, once the ensuing wave of nausea had subsided and he was certain that his eyes would remain in their sockets, he gingerly stood up, turned off the water and wrapped himself in a towel.

'Hello owl,' he said to the little brown owl as it stretched its wings and eyed him hopefully. It flew off immediately it had received its owl nut, and Snape slid an eager finger under the wax seal.

_Dear Severus,_

_I admit I was hurt when you asked me to stop writing, though I had no right to be, but I see now why you were so certain I must be playing a joke on you. Your letter made me so very happy but at the same time broke my heart. If only I could let you see yourself as I see you._

_I find it hard to believe that not you nor anyone else has discovered my secret. I can't help but feel it must be visible, whenever I look at you; you make me feel like - oh, the poets all say it better but a quote seems wrong - like maybe someone has lit a fire in me and it must be burning and shining out of me. I feel as though it's all I can do to stop myself from asking you if I could take your hand, or put my arms around you, or beg you for a kiss. But I know, one would never be enough. And so I do my best to behave as I do with all the others, and I suppose I must succeed. Perhaps I have learned from you how to be inscrutable! It is a shame I still haven't learned how to be brave._

_I suppose what I am trying to tell you is that you _are _lovable._

_I didn't know I had such purple prose in me, but it's awfully difficult to put feelings into words without becoming horribly overblown, only I had to try to convince you at least a little that I'm as sincere as I could be._

Snape swallowed hard a couple of times and reached for a painkilling potion.

He dragged his heels on the way to breakfast, but the smile Lupin gave him as he took his seat distracted him from his usual dread of defending himself from his colleagues' morning small-talk. He was almost cheerful as he asked Minerva McGonagall for the coffee-pot and when Sprout tentatively asked him a question about harvesting verbena for potions, she was amazed to receive a civil and informative answer.

'So did you?' Lupin asked when the other members of staff were distracted.

'Did I what?'

'Write to your secret admirer again?'

'Yes,' Snape said curtly, and felt a sudden lurch of disappointment.

'What, did she not write back?'

'She is actually a - yes.'

Why could he not admit to Lupin - non-judgemental gentle Lupin - that his letter writer was a man?

'Any new ideas of who it might be?'

'No, Lupin, I don't. And frankly, it's probably some bloody kid trying to lure me into a horribly embarrassing situation. You know what the students are.'

'I'd say that it would be an unusually complicated way of annoying a teacher actually. And I'm sure you'd see through a joke letter in a second.'

Snape had nothing to say to that so he kept quiet, occasionally risking glances at Lupin who continued to drink his tea as placidly as ever.


	4. Chapter 4

A few days later it was the night before that of the full moon, and Snape was sitting in Lupin's rooms drinking elderflower wine. He had not felt able to talk until they were on their third bottle, and now he had to concentrate very hard in order to prevent all that was in his mind from spilling out. The idea of Lupin looking horrified, Lupin disgusted, Lupin being _understanding _- that was what stopped him from saying more than he felt he should.

Lupin was talking about Wilkie Collins and _The Moonstone_, and from there he went on to Sherlock Holmes.

'…and I felt sorry for Sherlock, I loved him, but Watson… of course the character was important as part of the construct of the stories, but Conan Doyle always seemed to put so much emphasis on how Sherlock never found women attractive and I always thought, _well, it's obvious, Sherlock's in love with his friend, no wonder he never seems to get any _-'

Snape raised his eyebrows and took a swig of wine to hide his consternation.

'It's just imagined subtext,' said Lupin and he laughed, but Snape felt his eyes on him.

'I imagine many books can be read that way,' he said easily, and this made Lupin smile and nod.

'Friendships in the past seemed to be much - well, there was less pressure to hide your feelings. I don't mean they were romantic necessarily but - people just seemed closer. That's all.'

'You sound like you're yearning for the days gone by, Lupin,' said Snape, and Lupin laughed again.

'I don't know about that,' he said softly. 'Muggles used to lock away all sorts of people - people like me.'

'Werewolves?'

'Amongst others.'

Snape sat back in his chair and stared at his wine. He could read between the lines, but he was not sure if he was supposed to. He threw caution to the winds.

'So are you - that is to say…'

'Do I, er, like men? Yes… I thought everyone knew - at least, all the staff. It was the only way I could shake off Trelawney. She kept on and on about my fascinating hybrid nature and my undoubted divination talents… and my certain mastery of the _sensual arts_. So I had to break it to her that she'd never be a recipient of those arts.'

Snape gawped at him and Lupin began to laugh, gently at first and then uproariously.

'You thought everyone knew?' It was almost a disappointment, an anticlimax.

'Oh yes, a couple of days later Bay and Artemis turned up in my study holding hands and grinning and got me drunk. And Minerva keeps asking me when I'm going to find a nice young man - those exact words.'

'And what do you tell her?' Snape asked, feeling a slight smugness that his reading of Hooch and Sinistra's feelings had been correct.

He was shocked to see Lupin's face fall.

'I tell her I don't know.'

He felt panicked, like he needed to reassure Lupin but wasn't quite sure how.

'No doubt you will find another mate in time.'

'It's not quite as easy as that, is it Severus? Leaving aside the fact that I spend most of the year cooped up here, if I meet someone new then I have to go through the whole rigmarole, you know, oh by the way once a month I'm a monster.'

'If they love you, it will not matter.'

'You can't possibly believe that! How on earth do you think _you'd _react if - well, anyway, it's not like that's a current problem.'

'I have my own confession that I would need to make,' said Snape into the quiet.

Lupin rested his head in his hand, rubbed his face wearily.

'I forget,' he said, and there was a long pause before he added, 'You said _another _mate.'

'I assumed that you and Black -'

'No, never,' said Lupin sharply. 'I might have wanted to once, a long time ago, but he - he was never like that. And he never trusted me.' He saw something in Snape's face that made him add, 'I'm sorry. I'm tired, it's nearly the full moon. It makes me - not quite myself.'

'I will leave you to rest.'

'It might be best.'

Snape drained his glass and walked to the door, turned back.

'Good night, Severus,' Lupin said hoarsely.

'Good night,' Snape replied, his usual neutral face giving no hint that he was thinking of anything beyond bed.

* * *

><p>Lupin looked old at breakfast, and subdued. He gave a welcoming smile but Snape's heart sank when he saw it; the social smile, the pleasant impersonal mask.<p>

'Good morning Lupin,' he said, and picked up the coffee pot. 'Are you not hungry?'

'I'm not normally hungry, on the day before.'

'You ought to at least have something to drink. Here.' Snape replaced the coffee and took up the teapot, poured a strong cup of tea and added a dash of milk before putting it down at Lupin's elbow.

'Thank you.'

Snape poured his own drink and marmaladed a slice of toast but somehow his appetite had gone. He took a reluctant bite and chewed it slowly.

'Your wolfsbane should be ready this afternoon. I'll bring it to you.'

'I'll be in my rooms from about half two,' Lupin told him and wrapped his scarred hands around his cup.

There did not seem to be anything left to say so Snape finished his coffee, left half his toast uneaten and left the table with a nod to Lupin and a mild glare for everyone else.

All through the morning he kept a very close eye on the potion simmering away in his store cupboard. He was absent-minded with his classes and forgot to take any points off the Weasley twins for purposely dropping their flask of finished potion after the contents of their cauldron had been cleared. He just half-heartedly waved his wand and vanished the mess before looking up to see the red-heads standing in front of him with identical quizzical looks on their faces. He waved an impatient arm at them and they escaped eagerly.

At break he sifted through his hundreds of bottles of potions he had arrayed on his shelves, glancing at the neat labels, uncorking and sniffing them, checking their brew dates. A few passed muster and he put them carefully into a small basket before turning his attention to the first-years pouring in and giving them their instructions for the lesson.

At lunch, Lupin was absent. Snape snapped at Sprout when she asked for the mustard, and he all but growled when Hagrid cheerily asked him if he was well. He stalked out as soon as he could.

How he got through the next lessons he could not remember, but somehow they passed without major incident and finally his duties for the day were over. He checked once more on the wolfsbane, ladled some into a goblet and was about to leave when he remembered something else. He rummaged in a desk drawer until he found it and then dropped it into the basket along with the potion bottles before heading up to Lupin's rooms.

The werewolf answered the rap at his door with an vague smile that broadened a little when he noted his visitor.

'I will not detain you,' Snape said. Lupin looked rumpled as though he had been in bed fully clothed. His hair was standing on end and his eyes were bleary, his cheeks hollow.

He handed the steaming goblet to Lupin who drank the potion down in reluctant gulps and then returned the cup, wiping his mouth distractedly on the back of his hand.

'Thank you, Severus,' he said, trying not to grimace.

Snape dipped his head in acknowledgment and then thrust the basket at Lupin who caught hold bemusedly.

'Some things to improve the transformation,' he blurted out before turning and almost running away so that he would not have to see Lupin's reaction although he didn't miss the faint 'Thank you very much,' trailing after him.

* * *

><p>Snape sat at his desk staring out of the window and watching the moon rise, a neglected pile of parchments in front of him. At this moment Lupin was turning from a man into a beast in the confines of his study. The amount of power he had over the man chilled him whenever he thought about it. If the potion were to fail… though surely Lupin charmed his rooms well no matter how much he might trust in the wolfsbane.<p>

It had surprised him, Lupin's willingness to be his guinea pig and to take something he did not understand brewed by someone who, at least at the beginning of the year, had given every impression of loathing him. He wondered, was it that he hated his monthly loss of control so violently, or that he knew Snape's skill and pride too well to fear the potion's failure? Of course, all the staff knew that Snape would do whatever the headmaster asked of him, though few knew why. Lupin must surely know that even had Snape found it possible to sabotage his own brewing, he would never risk Dumbledore's disappointment or anger.

He got to his feet and went over to one of his bookcases, scanned the shelves intently before finding what he wanted. _An Illustrated Guide to Dark Creatures; Their Habits, Diets and Methods of Destruction_.

He sat back down and flicked to a page near the back. _Common werewolf, Lupus homine. Also: lycan, loup-garou, versipellis, waelwulfas, dementia canina, melancholia lupina._

Melancholia lupina seemed fairly apt and his lips twitched at the irony of Lupin's name before his attention was drawn by the large colour plates surrounded by text. They showed an artist's impression of a man transforming into a wolf, first naked but otherwise normal, then with a scream of anguish, before his limbs started to bend and lengthen, his head elongating into a snout, claws bursting from his fingertips, fur burgeoning from his skin. In the final picture, a large grey wolf sat on its haunches, howling at the full moon.

Snape leaned back. He had caught a glimpse of Lupin his wolf-form once, that awful night when he realised the depth of Black's hatred for him and the shallowness of Potter's, and his perception of meek Remus Lupin shattered and reformed itself into the image of a beast, a monster. He could barely remember though. He thought he had perhaps only seen a flash of yellow eyes, the glint of wand-light on teeth, a tail's swish. He had heard the howl though, a sound that had lingered on in his nightmares.

He realised with faint surprise that despite making Lupin's wolfsbane, the fact of his lycanthropy seemed to have filtered down into his subconscious, something that he knew but gave no thought to. Something that did not affect the way he saw Lupin now.

Lupin… he was filled with the urge to see him once again, perhaps to shake himself free of one of his demons. He shook his head at his own foolishness and looked around for something to distract himself. Then he remembered the letters.

_X, _he wrote,

_I apologise for not responding to your last letter. I did not know, and I still do not, how I should reply, but thank you nonetheless._

_It will not surprise you to learn that I have been trying to deduce your identity. Unfortunately I cannot think of anyone at all likely, both within Hogwarts and in the wider world. I believed that I was skilled at uncovering dissemblers but it seems you have beaten me._

_I hope you are well._

Once he had sent the missive, he began thinking again about the writer's identity, and he realised that if he wrote back tonight, then it could not be Lupin. Although he yearned for another reply, he realised with a start that he did not wish it to arrive before moonset.

* * *

><p>He got his wish. When he woke up early the next morning after a night spent turning impatiently in his bed, vaguely horrible dreams troubling his sleep, there was no sign of the little owl.<p>

He went to breakfast and taught his lessons impatiently, waiting for he did not know what. When the lunch bell went, he found himself not heading down to the great hall but wending his way to the sanatorium.

Lupin was tucked up in bed behind a screen so that no unexpected student might see him there. His face was almost the same white as the sheets pulled up to his chin except for the grey under his eyes and the livid purple and red of the new wounds to his scarred face. His eyes were closed, black eyelashes lying on the white flesh, and for a moment Snape panicked inwardly that he might be dead. Then the eyes fluttered open; a bright light brown almost orange or amber, and the wide mouth stretched into a smile.

'Good afternoon, Severus.'

'Lupin. Did you take the potions?'

Lupin smiled as though he would have expected nothing less.

'I did, and I feel surprisingly okay, no matter how I look.'

'You look all right - no, you look like death,' said Snape, correcting himself.

'Thanks very much. But honestly, I usually feel worse.'

'I - er - I just came to see how you were,' Snape said, and stuttered to a halt. He dug his hands in his pockets and found a coincidental chocolate frog, half-melted. 'Are you allowed to eat yet?'

'All Madam Pomfrey has tried to do today is make me eat something,' said Lupin.

'Well then,' said Snape, and handed him the frog. Lupin fumbled with the wrapper before gaining entry and devouring it with evident relish, licking traces of chocolate off his fingers. 'Better?'

'Oh yes. Whoever discovered that chocolate is a healing aid has my thanks,' Lupin told him with a Dumbledore-like twinkle, 'as do you.'

Snape muttered something which could have been an ungracious acknowledgment.

'What I could really do with is a cup of tea,' said Lupin, wriggling so that he was sat up in his bed and his absurdly ornate hospital nightgown was visible.

Snape said nothing, simply conjured the various apparatus necessary and then handing Lupin a comforting cup of strong brown tea which he wrapped his hands round gratefully and blew on.

'Thank you Severus. I wish every werewolf could have a potions master taking care of them after a full moon.'

Snape stared down at the used tea bag he had hoicked out of the teacup and abandoned in a paper towel, and wished he knew what to say.

'I'm not trying to embarrass you. I just feel - well, what on earth have I done to deserve this? A comfortable bed in the san, a caring mediwitch, chocolate and tea, rare and difficult potions…'

'You must have earned it somehow.'

'I only wish I knew how.'

Snape said nothing, but got to his feet and turned to leave. When he glanced back, Lupin gave him the smile that transformed his face from tired and pained to endearingly open, and he returned it before he made good his escape.


	5. Chapter 5

Thank you so very much to everyone who has taken the time to review this. I haven't got round to replying to all of you yet but I appreciate it more than you can guess! And so, without further ado...

* * *

><p>Later that day, Snape received a response.<p>

_Dear Severus,_

_Thank you for your letter. I believe that a man of your talents might potentially track me down. My hopeful side tells me that perhaps you have some emotional investment that stops you from seeing clearly and identifying me. My pessimism tells me that you have simply no idea who in this castle might be interested in you (whether from modesty or from detachment I could not say) and that you simply maintain this epistolary relationship from politeness. Severus Snape, polite! I do not mean to mock; but perhaps you have a softer side that most people do not see, and that prevents you from bluntly telling me that whoever I am, you are not invested in this correspondence the way that I am._

_I suppose what I want to say, what I want to believe, is that you have set your heart on someone - I don't mean to alarm you, perhaps your feelings are just those of a friend - and that you have reason to think that this friend is the one who is writing you these cryptically pathetic letters. Who can say? Certainly not me. I wish I could, but every time I interact with you I am reminded just how enigmatic you are and how hidden you keep your inner life._

_Severus, I wish I could be sure that you were fond (what a terrible word) of me, fond enough to forgive me if you simply felt friendship for me and nothing else, but no matter how much I wish that I can't be sure of you._

_All my love, as always._

Snape wondered just how accurate any of these guesses were. Keeping emotions safely locked away meant that they were difficult to examine; he was not in the habit of allowing himself the luxury of self-analysis. Surely though, he did not maintain this back-and-forth out of concern for another man's feelings? He felt sure that if that were the case, it would be kinder to stop things before they began to spiral out of control. And that seemed like it could be happening.

He had come to depend on these letters, ghost of a relationship though they may be. It was a new experience for him to feel, well, _loved_. Perhaps he simply let this person carry on hoping because he could not bear to change the way they felt about him, to render himself once more entirely isolated.

Alone, though? Maybe not quite as alone as before. His thoughts drifted back to Lupin, heated discussions and inconsequential chats, whisky and wine and coffee, chocolate and wolfsbane. And as pleasant as it was to correspond with someone who thought Severus Snape was a deserving recipient of love, it could not possibly be an equal bond.

He took out his quill, thought for a few minutes. He put pen to paper several times but withdrew, leaving a litany of black dots instead of fluent sentences.

Not now. He would think about this letter before he replied. Maybe he could ask Lupin what he thought. Instead he drew to him a stack of potions essays and began to mark, his pot of red ink rapidly diminishing as he criticised his pupils' spelling and grammar as well as their generally nonexistent grasp of healing potions.

* * *

><p>Snape was early to breakfast the next day, his eyes flicking up at each new entry to the hall. Eventually Lupin came in and made his way up to the teachers' dais. He had dark shadows under his eyes and little colour in his cheeks, and his face was covered with a light sheen of sweat.<p>

'How are you feeling?' Snape asked him as he took his seat.

'Oh, alright,' Lupin said. 'Could you please pass me the teapot?'

Snape reached over for it and noted Lupin's hands trembling with the effort as he poured himself a cup.

'You ought to still be in bed.'

'It's bad enough that the full moon has to interrupt my life one night in every 28 and the next day too, but I refuse to let it do more than that.'

'Nonetheless, you look fit for nothing more than rest, weak tea and Agatha Christie.'

'Honestly Severus!' Remus snapped, and then looked shocked at himself. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bite your head off. Thank you for your concern, really, but I'm fine.'

Snape nodded curtly. He had been hastily reassembling his defences; showing concern was so alien to him and made him feel so exposed that it only took even a minor negative reaction to send him scuttling back into his shell.

It appeared that Lupin recognised that better than Snape did himself.

'Really,' he said again, gently. 'I'm grateful, more than you can know. I forget how lucky I am, to be a werewolf whose condition is not only known and accepted but is actually a reason for sympathy.'

Snape shifted uncomfortably in his seat but he could not keep quiet.

'There is no reason at all that you should be grateful!' he burst out, not noticing the curious looks from the other members of staff. 'You suffer as a result of something which is not your fault, that gives you great pain but which never drives you to complaints or self-pity, that has given you trouble and made people shun you and be cruel to you throughout your life but you remain polite and equitable and a decent human being. And when someone irritates you by questioning your own judgement - a judgement formed by years of experience - you behave perfectly reasonably, but then back down in order not to let them resent you or feel rejected! Don't be grateful, you've got nothing to be grateful for! Angry yes, disempowered, discriminated against - fine! Not bloody _grateful_!'

'I don't think you understand,' Lupin retorted. 'Most of my kind end up on the streets doing god knows what to survive, not knowing where the next meal is coming from! And so they go feral, because there's a safety in a pack, they bite people and turn them because they don't have any way to stop that happening! Or they realise that that life isn't worth living and so… Well, I _am _lucky! I've got a job I like, a bed, good food three times a day, wolfsbane and a safe place to transform, people who know what I am but don't shun me! Most people can take that for granted and that's fine but I know that things could so easily be very different for me!'

'But don't you appreciate, that's _wrong_! It shouldn't be that way! You should not feel that these basic things are down to luck. No werewolf should! None of you should suffer for something that isn't your fault, that as you say yourself only truly affects you one night a month.'

'Do you think I don't know? Of course I do! But that isn't the way things are, and they probably never will be. The fact of it is that I have had extraordinary luck to end up the way I have.'

'Have you ever thought it might be you yourself who have created your own luck Remus, by the way you behave? That maybe you deserve these things? It's not that I mean that others may not deserve it but that you, how you are, are the reason that your life is now so much better than most werewolves'.'

Lupin appeared to struggle for words for a few moments. 'There's nothing special about me, that means I should be so well-off compared with anyone else! But…'

Snape sat and waited but nothing else was forthcoming.

'But what?' he prompted eventually.

'But nothing,' Lupin said. He was panting slightly and his face was an unhealthy shade of grey.

'I have overtired you. Here…' Snape took a glass and filled with water. He handed it over, Remus sipping on it like it was a lifeline.

'It was very kind of you, to say the things you did,' he said eventually in a low voice.

'It wasn't kindness,' said Snape, feeling his anger rise again. Not at Lupin, never at Lupin, but at the world they lived in for making this man feel the way he did. Reminding himself of this made it simmer back down to its usual level of general bother though not at its usual causes. 'It was the truth.'

Lupin glanced at him, drank some more water.

'You called me Remus.'

Snape thought back and - yes.

'I apologise if I was overfamiliar,' he said stiffly.

'No, no, it was nice,' Lupin said earnestly, and then for some reason blushed into his glass as he looked down.

'You always call me Severus,' he said inconsequentially.

'Yes I do.'

There seemed to be nothing left to be said after that and the other teachers looked away, perhaps disappointed that there was not going to be a full-blown punch-up or at least a no-holds-barred slanging match.

* * *

><p>It was only that evening that Snape realised he still had not replied to the letter he had received and that he had not thought to ask Lupin; he had forgotten the letter even though Lupin's flushed face had seemed to float to the forefront of his mind every time he tried to concentrate. Besides he was not sure how happy Lupin would be now to be consulted by him. They had not spoken since the strange end to their - argument seemed too strong. Discussion.<p>

He sighed and realised he would have to do it by himself.

_X,_

_You posed some questions in your letter that are difficult to answer._

_The first thing for me to say is that I know of no one in my life to whom I can attribute the feelings you describe for me._

_The second is that I cannot possibly tell you how I feel about you when I do not know your identity._

_The third is that despite my ignorance, I am what you call invested in this._

He brushed the tip of his quill on his chin thoughtfully. He could think of nothing more to write, but it did not seem to matter a great deal. The intellectual problem of who the writer was still intrigued him but surely whoever it was knew that he, Snape, could never be in any way frank with him while he remained anonymous. If he did know his identity though, what difference did that make?

He dragged out his list once more and looked at the possibles.

-Rubeus Hagrid. _Extremely _unlikely to write such a letter. Almost certainly not.  
>-Filius Flitwick. Has a way with words. Potential. Much more likely to present me with charms than write such letters.<br>-The Headmaster. A thousand times no.  
>-Remus Lupin. <em>Certainly <em>capable of stringing together a coherent sentence. Very likely - no, _possibly _still besotted with Black. Denies it.  
>-Argus Filch. In the name of all that's magical, no.<br>-Lucius. History… However he surely loves only himself. Incapable of such feelings. Would _never _write a love letter.  
>-Master Dickens from the Hogwarts bookshop. Hates me, ancient. Loves only his books <em>vis <em>his refusal to sell me first edition of Unthank's _Herbal.  
><em>-Male student. None spring to mind; still a possibility.

He crossed through Hagrid and Filch as incapable of writing the way this man did. With an inward shudder, he also rejected Dumbledore. The man knew everything about everyone and would have no call to resort to anonymity. Master Dickens? No, certainly not. Flitwick would probably write much more arch and flirtatious letters were he to take such a step, but he was not an entire impossibility. Lucius's love letters, were such a thing to occur, would no doubt be far more flowery and fawning. Lupin? Would potentially write in such a way but the past would surely guard against his developing such feelings. And male students, well, that would be disturbing but rather more easily dealt with.

So:

-Filius Flitwick  
>-Remus Lupin<br>-Lucius  
>-Male student<p>

He knew Lupin and Lucius's tastes both extended far enough to encompass him, and he supposed that surely out of all the students in Hogwarts, there was at least one who shared their predilections. It was hard to imagine Flitwick's being anything other than asexual but, he thought, it could not be written off.

He stared at the names as they whirled round inside his head, meeting all the same resistance that they had before. Flit wick - why now? Surely not. Lupin - loves (loved?) Black. Lucius - loves Lucius. Students - dislike me.

He sent the letter to his correspondent then drew a fresh piece of parchment to him and attempted to write a letter to Malfoy.

_Lucius,_

_I hope you and Narcissa are well, and -_

_Malfoy,_

_I have been receiving -_

_Dear Lucius,_

_I have been overcome by a wave of nostalgia -_

_Luc,_

_Do you remember those times -_

He crumpled the parchment up and threw it into the fire in disgust. The whole thing was ridiculous. He tried to read the _British Journal of Potion-Making_ but pictures of Lupin, tired but defiant, stayed with him all evening.

* * *

><p>Several days later there was a Hogsmeade visit scheduled. The winter was upon them and the chattering students were wrapped up warmly as they lined up in their forms, faces red with the wind but thrilled to be leaving the castle.<p>

Snape led the senior Slytherins (more decorous than any of the others, he was pleased to note) down to the village and reminded them of the time they should be ready to leave before leaving them with relief and making for Master Dickens' bookshop. He picked up a couple of heavy textbooks and several slim paperbacks that were wrapped in brown paper, paid the surly shopkeeper and headed towards the pub.

'Oh, hello Severus!' came a voice and he turned to see Lupin, as bundled up as the children and as rosy-cheeked, hurrying towards him.

They had spoken since their falling-out, but only polite inconsequentialities at the meal table. Something had changed and Snape was at a loss to know what it was. Of course, a werewolf would not appreciate someone else lecturing them about werewolf rights but Lupin had appeared to know that he had meant well. It was more as if the easy bond that had been starting to connect them had changed in an unexpected way and he no longer knew whether he could invite Lupin to his rooms, or knock on his study door, or talk to him about something he was reading.

He could not ignore the rush of pleasure that Lupin hailing him gave though he did not relax, his body stiff inside the chain mail of his black robes, the breastplate of their many buttons.

'Lupin,' he said, face as blank as ever but not unfriendly.

'I didn't realise you'd be down here too. I had to swap out of the next one with Artemis. What are you planning to do? Oh, you've already done some shopping.'

'I have only been to the Grammary for some books and was intending to go and read at the Three Broomsticks.'

'That sounds nice. Nothing like a roaring fire and a book in a pub on a cold day.'

'You are welcome to join me.'

'I'd love to,' Remus said warmly and Snape smiled before he could help himself. 'Can we go via Honeydukes though? I'm running low on supplies.'

'Of course.'

When they came out of the warm sugary-scented shop back into the cold, Lupin was clutching an enormous box packed with various types of chocolate. Snape had caved in and bought himself a bag of aniseed balls, to Lupin's incomprehension.

'But why would you want them when you could have chocolate?'

'I like their flavour. Not everyone is as wedded to chocolate as you, Lupin.'

'But how can you like them more than chocolate?'

Snape had shaken his head in amusement, knowing that Lupin was only half-joking.

They found a snug nook near the fire in the Three Broomsticks and Snape brought over coffee and a slice of chocolate cake that made Lupin's eyes light up.

'Thank you!' he grinned and set about it with a fork.

Snape watched him with something like amusement on his face and then stirred his coffee meditatively.

Lupin clearly had nothing he wanted to say until he devoured the last forkful of cake when he sat back in his chair and swallowed a mouthful of coffee.

'That was delicious.'

'Madam Rosmerta asked me to tell you that she made it herself.'

'She's a woman in a hundred.'

Lupin watched Snape raise his eyebrows and laughed.

'Still a woman though,' he said in a low voice and a glance at Snape's dark eyes that seemed to fill the potions master with recklessness.

'Actually… I had something - not about Rosmerta but - you recall I told you about the letters I have been receiving?'

'I do.'

'I was not entirely honest about my, ah, anonymous correspondent. That is, I let you believe something untrue.'

'Oh?'

'It's not a - that's to say - it's, _he's _a wizard. A man.'

It was Lupin's turn to raise his eyebrows, almost disappearing under his longish hair.

'How interesting. And that doesn't put you off.' It was a statement.

Lupin had perched on the edge of his chair and he was looking at the fire. Snape stared at him for a moment before replying.

'No.'

Lupin carried on staring into the fire.

'The opposite?'

'…Yes.'

'I would never have known that about you, Severus.'

'I would appreciate your not divulging -'

'Oh, of course I won't tell anyone. It's yours to tell. Is there - is something happening? You know, with you and your writer?'

Snape could not bring himself to meet Lupin's eyes as he told him that he did not know this man's identity and so nothing could come of it.

'But you'd like it to? I mean, if it was the right person?'

'Are you asking me if there is someone I would… are you asking me if I have…'

'I'm asking you if there's anyone you fancy, Severus,' asked Lupin with a smile that did not reach his eyes.

Snape panicked. He fixed Lupin with his best glare, got to his feet and stalked off in the direction of the men's bathroom where he locked himself into a cubicle and tried but failed to read malice into Lupin's questioning. When he got back, the coffee cups were still there, and the plate filled with cake crumbs, but Lupin was gone.

Snape felt like all he wanted to do was retreat into his rooms, lock the door and put up his wards, and crack open a new bottle of whisky or sloe gin or port, but he had his Slytherins to attend to and so he steeled himself and went back outside into the cold.


	6. Chapter 6

Later that evening, after Snape had missed dinner in favour of alcohol in his study and was flipping through his new books with unseeing eyes and shirt sleeves rolled up, the little owl once more appeared.

He let it through his window, closed now against the northern chill, and it walked in, fluffing its feathers.

He released the letter from its leg, fingers clumsy with drink, and fed it an owl nut. It helped itself to a little port from a spilled puddle on his desk and waited expectantly.

_Dear Severus,_

_You were not at dinner tonight. I hope you are well, and that nothing has happened to upset you._

_I apologise if I seem to continuously be fishing, trying to discern your feelings for me. As we have both known all along, I am a coward, and unless I knew that I was liked by you, at least a little, I think I would find it impossible to tell you to your face how I feel. I cannot tell you how I felt when you wrote, in your dry sort of way, that you were 'invested' in this correspondence we have. I will, with your permission, take it that nothing I write repulses or enrages you. It is a start, I suppose. And besides, I feel perhaps we are becoming friends._

That was all. Snape read it several times but could find nothing of note except in the last sentence. He supposed the writer meant 'becoming friends' through the enigmatic letters they exchanged, but perhaps… perhaps he meant in real life?

He dipped a quill into a pot of black ink and began to write.

_That you refer to me as a friend is interesting. I did not realise I had any friends. I suppose there could be the exception of Lupin; if you know me, you must know him. Perhaps you even are Lupin, but I cannot believe that._

He sat up. His quill had written the last sentences almost by itself. He reread the letter once, then again. Lupin… could it be? He had dismissed the idea out of hand, keeping him on his list only because _everyone _had seemed so very unlikely. But when he thought about it… Lupin was a similar age, they had fought together against Voldemort, they had been at school together… they shared the same proclivity, they both understood darkness and having something to hide… and of course, Lupin could write. But -

_Lupin, however, is no doubt still besotted with Black, deny it as he may, _he continued. _And besides, the man is a Gryffindor. If he had conceived a passion, he ought really, obeying the laws of his house, march straight up to the object of his affections and announce it. No, I think it more likely that you are in any of the other three houses._

He read his letter, forehead deeply furrowed, then caught up his wand and blasted it into fiery nothing, leaving a scorch-mark on his desk. This was ridiculous; why on earth was he writing to this man about Lupin?

He thought a little more and took up a fresh parchment. Dipping his quill into his inkpot he stared down at the creamy blank.

_We are not friends. I have no friends. I had work to do so did not attend dinner. Do not concern yourself with me._

He read and reread the terse sentences, his face curled into its characteristic scowl, but could think of nothing to add, and so he sent the owl away with the letter and poured more port.

Perhaps an hour elapsed, in which time he worked his way through most of the bottle and lost himself in thought, before he was interrupted by a unobtrusive knocking at the door.

He leaped up, heart beating and hands flying to tuck his hair behind his ears before sneering at himself and his foolishness and moving to open the door.

'Severus, please don't shut the door, I've come to apologise,' Lupin said in a rush before Snape could even open his mouth to speak.

He thought fleetingly and irritatingly that he could no longer have brought himself to close the door in Lupin's face.

'What for?' he snapped.

'Oh, er, leaving you in the pub. I - actually, this is embarrassing to say, but I thought I'd annoyed you and so, well, I scarpered.'

Snape's lips thinned as he pondered how to answer this confession. To buy himself time, he opened the door wider and stalked back into his room.

'We are not children any longer. I should have thought that you were perfectly able of holding your own.'

'I am - against most people though maybe not you. But I wasn't trying to get on your nerves, on interrogate you, and when I thought I had I was, er, angry with myself.'

Snape glanced narrowly at the shabby man standing ill at ease on the rug near the door.

'Are you afraid I'll hex you, so you need a good escape route?' he asked sharply, and noted the small smile in return.

'Maybe not as afraid as I should be,' Lupin told him, but accepted the invite and came and sat in one of the chairs.

'Port?'

'Lovely, thank you.'

Lupin accepted the glass with a cold hand, fingernails chewed down to the quick.

'You weren't at dinner?'

'No.'

'Is it my fault?'

'Not everything is down to you, Lupin.'

'No more "Remus"?'

Snape took a drink to avoid the question and wondered exactly what was happening. The alcohol he had consumed lay heavy in him, making him suddenly nauseous and, he realised, nervous. The words he had written and then destroyed seemed to echo in his head as though they were trying to drive him mad.

'Have you eaten anything?' Lupin asked him, throwing a glance at the now-empty port bottle.

'No.'

'Shall I ask a house elf to bring you something?'

'I am not hungry,' said Snape and it was true. He felt as though every polite word had to be dragged from him.

'Have you read that book I lent you?'

'No, but if you wish me to return it I -'

'No, no, I didn't want it back, I just wondered if you've read it yet. There's a poem in there that makes me think of you, the first stanza at least.'

Snape clenched his jaw to stop himself saying anything and folded shaking hands in his lap.

'You'll have to tell me which you think it is, when you've read them.'

'I will,' Snape said tightly.

'Well, I'm sure you've got lots to get on with, so I'll leave you to it. Thank you for the port.'

Snape looked up at Lupin's weary face and nodded.

'Severus, I know you probably don't - well, I just wanted to tell you, I'm interested in what you think and what you have to say, that's all really. And I find I can trust you. I don't want to get on your nerves or anything. I know you've got enough to be getting on with. I'm just grateful to have the chance to get to know you better. Maybe one day we'll be friends.'

Snape's eyes were on him and Remus gave the smile, the real smile, that transformed him from average nondescript man to suddenly, startlingly, compelling and it tugged an answering smile from Snape. Then something swept over Lupin's face and then he was back to his usual diffident self, and he nodded a goodbye and let himself out.

Snape spent hours that night wondering what had happened to him, that the memory of Lupin's face and Lupin's words and Lupin's eyes on him would no longer leave him any peace.

* * *

><p>The short days of winter continued with their endless rounds of lessons and marking and brewing. Snape felt these days as though he was living his life from inside some charm that cloaked his senses, that nothing was entirely real, his emotions blunted, and that only occasional flashes of white hot reality could penetrate the haze. Sometimes in his life he had wished that he could live like this, but now he found it almost intolerable.<p>

Now, when their eyes met and Remus smiled at him, he felt something inside clench unbearably, like the Cruciatus but somehow strangely delicious. He found himself watching the Defence professor, at meals when he nodded and murmured niceties to the teachers conversing with him, when he smiled that closed-up smile. He watched him in the staff room when they happened to meet, Lupin's knuckles white as he hefted the ancient kettle to pour water for tea, the way those hands wrapped around his steaming mug. He watched him in the corridors where he greeted students with easy kindness.

He could no longer bring himself to visit Lupin's rooms, but was powerless to refuse him entry when he would visit with a bottle of wine and a tentative smile that, when it was returned, seemed to spread over his face like a sunrise, bright brown eyes creasing with pleasure as he was invited in.

Snape returned Lupin's book to him, but neither man said anything about the poem that Lupin had thought was so apt for the potions master and Snape wondered if Lupin could possibly see how he felt his body soften at those knocks on the door, when he saw who his guest was.

He spent hours alone in his rooms, going through his correspondence over and over again, flicking through the parchments in search of clues to he knew not what. He felt completely adrift, uncomprehending of what he was feeling and only knowing that it was Lupin's fault, all Lupin.

The next full moon rolled round again too soon and he brewed the wolfsbane with his usual care, making trips to Lupin's classroom to deliver the steaming goblets and standing tongue-tied in the face of grateful thanks. This month he felt he did not deserve those thanks. This month he saw the wolfsbane as a gift for himself, that he could deliver it daily, personally.

The night of the moon, he could not sleep. He opened books and closed them again without taking in a single word. He returned to _An Illustrated Guide to Dark Creatures_, a book that by now fell open at the common werewolf page, watched the silent agony of transformation over and over again. How could anyone survive that, month after month? Surely one day such a reworking of his body would one day kill Remus? How could a potion to subdue the wolf's urges possibly alleviate such suffering? And how could Remus go on as he did, all self-effacing politeness and gentle smiles when he knew with such certainty the inevitable pain that awaited him when the full moon rose?

He paced about his study, then picking up his wand he left his room, setting the wards as always, and walked several times about the dungeons restlessly before capitulating and setting off in the direction of Lupin's private rooms.

It was only when he found himself at the door again, where he had not stood for weeks, that he started to doubt the wisdom of his actions. He was taken aback to find he was not afraid of the wolf but only of turning up like this, unannounced, when Remus was at his paradoxically most vulnerable.

He took down the silencing wards and listened at the door. Inside was silent. He knocked a few times and then listened again. Nothing.

'Lupin,' he called softly, and from inside there was a quiet whine. 'Are you all right?'

A tiny bark this time, as affirmative as a canine could sound, he thought.

'May I come in?' he said thickly after a long pause, not knowing what was driving him, only aware that he had to see Lupin, make sure he was not hurt.

There was the tiny bark again, and Snape took that as permission. He lowered the wards one by one and, wand at the ready, slowly opened the door.

He peered into the room, lit only by a dying fire. There was no sign of life until he advanced a little and then he saw the wolf - Remus - lying with his head on his front paws on the hearth rug.

He closed the door and put up the defensive spells again and advanced tentatively.

'I was concerned for your wellbeing,' he told Remus, who lifted a tilted head and looked at him with eyes just like honey. 'Are you injured?'

The wolf stared at him for a moment, then rose to its feet and padded towards him.

'Lumos,' Snape whispered, and he was looking at ugly gashes in the wolf's side and front leg. He passed his wand over it, muttering a simple healing charm, and the lips of the wound knitted together leaving only bloodstained fur. 'Is that all?'

The wolf caught his eye once more and nodded.

'You are otherwise well?'

It nodded again.

'Then I should leave.'

The wolf was frantically shaking its head, so that Snape's face cracked into a reluctant little smile. He could swear that it was grinning back at him, its tongue lolling like a pet dog's.

'I always imagined you would prefer to be alone at this time.'

The wolf shook its head and then whined before nudging Snape towards one of the easy chairs.

'I see. Well. I must say it is strange to be in the same room as you, and for you not to be talking.'

The wolf huffed at that and Snape found himself smiling again.

'I only mention it because I do not know - should I read? How about Keats? Shelley? Dickinson? No? Joyce? Eliot? A Bronte?' He stood up again and moved towards the bookshelf, his gaze hovering at the books ranked there until his eye fell on one well-thumbed volume. 'This? Yes? Ridiculous werewolf.'

He settled himself down, opened the book and began to read.

'"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing to sit down on or eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort".'

The wolf stretched languorously before resuming its place in front of the fire, thoroughly relaxed but for ears pricked upright and eyes barely open like Smaug's, guarding his treasure. Snape's voice, low and fluent, relayed the adventures of Bilbo Baggins until both were lulled to sleep and the fire burned itself out.

* * *

><p>It was the sound of pained gasps through gritted teeth that woke Snape up the next morning. In a moment he was on his knees beside an almost-human Lupin, watching powerlessly as the man tried his best to suffer his transformation as quietly as possible.<p>

It seemed hours, though in reality was probably less than a minute, before Lupin lay panting on the rug, eyelids fluttering and his face drawn and almost grey.

'Remus,' Snape murmured, and laid an uncertain hand on his naked shoulder.

Lupin's eyes opened and he attempted a grin that looked more like a grimace.

'All over now for another month,' he whispered hoarsely.

Snape looked around the room wildly until he spotted a blanket and spread it over the man on the floor, hiding his nakedness and the scars that mapped the contours of his suffering.

'Shall I help you to bed?'

'Yes please.'

His wand forgotten, Snape slid a hand under Lupin's naked back, got him up on unsteady feet and, wrapping the blanket around him, walked him slowly through the study and into his bedroom. He had never been there before, and although on another occasion he would have been curious, now his mind was only on the werewolf as he had never seen him before.

Once Lupin was safely into bed, he seemed to fall asleep immediately. He was shaking, and Snape retrieved his wand, cast cleaning and warming charms and then looked about helplessly.

'Lupin. You ought to take some healing potions now. Have you got any?'

'Bathroom cabinet,' Lupin said, eyes closed and eyelashes dark against ashen skin.

Snape helped him to sit up and poured a few of his own brews down Lupin's throat, making sure he swallowed every drop before he laid him down again.

He was standing and wondering what he ought to do when he heard the study door open. He went back, wand drawn, to see Madam Pomfrey looking concerned.

'Ah, Professor Snape, where's Remus?'

'He's in bed,' said Snape stiffly, cursing himself for not remembering that of course the school's mediwitch would be here to take Lupin to the hospital wing.

She looked surprised but did not comment, instead saying, 'Has he had any treatment?'

Snape reeled off the potions he had given Lupin and she nodded in satisfaction.

'Good. Well, I should take him now, unless…?'

'I have lessons to teach,' Snape told her with an inward shock that she thought he might stay, to look after Lupin. But of course, he had been there, he had taken care of him.

He brushed past her and left to find coffee before his first class of the day.


	7. Chapter 7

Here we go, the final official chapter. I had hoped to finish the smutty LJ one before I finished posting but, er, a rather lovely girl got in the way. Somehow, writing about rudeness isn't quite as fun as actually enacting rudeness! I will post a 'chapter eight' when there (finally) is one, but rest assured that the story is finished and anything more will just be PWPy naughtiness. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

The poem, by the way, is _Achilles in Love_ by Stephen Dunn, an incredibly beautiful piece that moved me terribly and also made me think of Snape. It's eminently findable on the net and I urge you to read it.

* * *

><p>That day, Snape wanted to visit Remus but something was stopping him. He thought he was embarrassed, perhaps, but was unable to think why. It seemed very difficult to think of looking Lupin in the eye after the night, and the morning.<p>

Over dinner, the headmaster had twinkled irritatingly at him, and had asked after Lupin's welfare. Snape had mumbled something non-committal in response, but made up his mind that he would visit him.

He was surprised to find the hospital wing empty, and Madam Pomfrey sitting with her feet up eating Turkish Delight and reading a thick book by someone called Stephen King.

'Oh, hello Professor,' she said. 'Are you looking for Remus? He's in his rooms, I should think. He woke up around lunchtime, seemed a fair bit better than usual. I'm not sure what you did for him - maybe it was having those potions so quickly - but he was awfully cheerful so I let him go.'

She gave him a smile, warmer by far than her usual nod, and went back to Stephen. Dismissed, Snape wended his way back through the castle to knock once more on Lupin's door.

'Come in,' said a muffled voice, and Snape let himself in to see the werewolf, huddled in a nest of blankets. Music was playing softly and the fire was burning merrily.

'Oh, hello Severus,' said Remus, and greeted Snape with such a radiant smile that Snape almost looked behind him, to see if someone more welcome had come in.

'Lupin. Are you well?'

'Yes, thank you, very well indeed. Just the usual aches and pains, nothing much the matter with me at all.'

'Have you eaten?'

'A bit of toast, it was all I wanted.'

Lupin's face, always pale, seemed almost normal, and the flash of his eyes was something quite new.

'Please, sit down. Thank you so much for looking after me this morning - and thanks as well for keeping me company last night. Really - it was wonderful. Not just your company, but that you - it sounds a bit silly perhaps, when we all know what a skilful potioneer you are, that your wolfsbane works so well, but - to be kept company when I am - like that. It's not common, that people don't mind seeing me in that state.'

Snape coloured.

'I enjoy Tolkien,' he managed, and got another smile.

'Me too. It's nice sometimes, to escape into an entirely different world where things are so alien. Oh, where are my manners - can I get you a cup of tea?'

'Don't be absurd, Lupin. I will make the tea, if that is what you want.'

'That would be very welcome.'

After a few minutes, when they were both holding mugs, Remus said, 'Madam Pomfrey was surprised to see you here, this morning. And to be honest, I was surprised when you turned up last night. I had started to think that you didn't like coming up here.'

'I was concerned. I am aware to an extent of the physical toll the full moon takes on y- on werewolves. I suppose I also had some academic curiosity as to what a werewolf truly looks like. And then you wished me to remain.'

'Yes, I did. I do. So what did I look like?'

'More or less a common or garden wolf.'

'Not a disappointment, I hope.'

'Certainly an improvement on the last time I saw you at a full moon,' Snape said dryly, and noticed the anxious glance Lupin shot him. 'I believe those memories have been fully laid to rest.'

'I'm more glad than I can say,' Lupin said quietly.

They drank the rest of their tea in silence. Snape felt as though he had a thousand things to say that hovered on his tongue but that there were no words to tell them.

'I imagine I will see you tomorrow,' he said eventually as he got up to leave.

'Yes you will,' said Lupin. 'Goodnight, Severus.'

'Goodnight.'

* * *

><p>When he got back to his own room, Snape immediately sat down to write a letter.<p>

_Dear X,_

_I cannot in all conscience allow you to continue writing to me without informing you of a development. The fact of the matter is that there is someone I know who - I cannot encourage your - I find myself embroiled - I have become concerned…_

He laid down his quill and sighed at the crossings-out. It was so difficult to express what had happened to him, unless… What would it look like written down?

_Dear X,_

_I cannot in all conscience allow you to continue writing to me without informing you of a development. I believe I am in love._

_Of course, I cannot say whether it is with you or with another._

_S Snape_

It made him feel sick and hot and tremulous but it was right.

He sealed up the parchment and took it off to the Owlery. He found the little brown owl sleeping between two magnificent barn owls but on his approach it opened its eyes, hooted in recognition and shuffled forward to hold out an eager leg.

He watched it fly out of the tower until it disappeared into the blackness of the countryside night, still thrumming with nervous tension, but reminded himself that really he had given very little away and began the long descent to the dungeons.

* * *

><p><em>Please forgive me for the delay in responding to you, Severus. I have not found it easy to reply to your letter. I have to congratulate , or perhaps commiserate, you on your acknowledgement, and I have also to thank you for your frankness.<em>

_I know I should end these letters. I feel I must tell you who I am. Perhaps now you will not dismiss me even if it is not me you believe yourself in love with (and I, like you, find it hard to believe myself loveable). But do you even want me to?_

_I cannot tell you how long it will take me to screw up the miserable scraps of my courage. Should I tell you my identity through a letter? Should I confess to your face? Oh Severus, this is so difficult, and it is made more difficult by the tiny glimmer of hope your last letter has ignited, no matter how I try to talk it away._

_And after all, you may well have told your 'development' of your love, and it certainly was not me. I have said many times how brave you are, and I am sure you would not resort to anonymous words on paper._

_Please forgive my dithering. I hope it is true when I tell you that I would have been much more forthright if only I did not feel for you what I do._

_As ever, I love you._

Severus immediately picked up a quill and, politely asking the owl to wait and giving it a saucer of water and a fresh dead mouse from one of his supply jars, sat down to write.

_Dear mysterious writer,_

_I am, as I am sure you are aware, not a patient man. However, I do forgive your dithering because I appreciate the reasons for your reticence._

_I have not made my own confession. In truth, I have only just reached the inevitable conclusion._

_I would like to know your identity, if only to congratulate you on your successful concealment of your identity._

_S Snape_

He fastened the letter to the owl's leg and then sat back to try to make sense of all that was happening. The way he found he now felt about Lupin - how could he have predicted that, or guarded against it? And now no doubt it was too late. He shook his head at his own folly; after all that he had said to Lupin, the choices he had made in his life, how could he ever be loved by such a man?

And yet…

He groped in his pocket once more for the list of candidates that he had read and reread so many times, his eyes moving straight to the bottom.

Likelies

-Remus Lupin. A capable writer no doubt. Uncertainty regarding history with Black - though seems truthful.  
>-Flitwick. Entirely bizarre, very unlikely, in no way appealing.<br>-Lucius. An old acquaintance, a "friend". Could perhaps write, but would not? Self obsessed, cold. Could not humble himself in such a way (a point in Lupin's favour).  
>-Male student. Present only for completeness. I am not noticeably popular with any student.<p>

And that short list made his own faint hope redouble and it was impossible to quench it.

* * *

><p>Snape was on tenterhooks the next few days. He had no way of knowing when or if his correspondent might reply or even make himself known face to face, and he jumped at the opening of doors and knocks at his classroom. He wanted to hate himself for hoping but found he could not. His own self-loathing seemed to be ebbing; his guilt and regrets remained as strong as ever but finally he recognised his actions for the past that they were and his engagement with the present had never been so strong.<p>

Whenever he passed Lupin in the corridors, they made polite salutations, and when they sat next to each at meals they discussed subjects which Snape secretly thought of as _safe_. Lupin did not come to Snape's rooms, and Snape did not go to Lupin's.

Snape's evenings felt empty and, after setting his wards and spells to alert him of visitors to his office, he had taken to climbing the steps to the Owlery after the students' curfew. He found the little brown owl, always nesting in the same place between two haughty barn owls and he would stay a while in the dark looking at it and feeding it owl nuts. It would utter tired hoots for a while before taking to the skies and the hunt whilst he fingered the parchment and quill in his pocket. He wondered whether he could bring himself to send a letter, to his correspondent - or to Lupin.

One night, he had gone so far as to write a letter, much like the first anonymous one he had received. But the letter stayed in his pocket, charmed to be read only by Lupin and to remain untraceable.

In all his nights in the Owlery surrounded by sleepy birds he had never been disturbed, but after a couple of weeks, he was feeding the brown owl when he heard footsteps on the stairs.

He whirled around, hand on his wand, and watched the glow of a wand become brighter until it and its bearer appeared at the top of the staircase. He lowered his own wand but could not relax.

'Is someone there?' said Lupin, obviously dazzled by his light and unable to see into the shadows of the tower.

'It is Severus Snape,' said Snape, and stepped forward reluctantly into the light.

'Oh - Severus - what are you doing here?'

Lupin did not look displeased to see him, rather almost afraid.

'I could ask you the same question,' Snape told him, looking him in the eye.

'I, er, I like the owls.'

'Really Lupin.'

'I do! But also, I was - well, I was going to send a letter.'

'Don't let me stop you.'

Lupin took a step forward, stopped and swallowed hard, then with a twitch of his wand the light went out and left them in darkness. He seemed to sense rather than see Snape lift his own wand and said, 'No, hang on Severus, please. This is - it's easier - I'd rather you didn't see me.'

Snape stood in silence, in the dark. There was very little light, moon and stars hidden behind clouds, and he thought he could hear Lupin breathing rapidly over the pounding of his own heart.

'I was going to send this letter by owl, but since - since you're here, I may as well give it to you directly.'

Through the gloom Snape could just about make out the white of Lupin's face and the hand that came forward. He took the letter and put it into his pocket.

'I'm sorry this has been going on so long. I - well, it can't make you see me in a very good light.'

'I can't see you at all, Remus,' said Snape softly, and Lupin gave a choking sort of laugh.

'I just felt - well, I thought there was no getting to your weakness.'

'And to be invulnerable is to be alone,' Snape said heavily.

'Oh - you knew yourself in that poem!' Lupin's voice rose, then fell again. 'I was so sure that under your robes were layers of armour.'

'But now you know that someone came along.'

'Yes, and I hoped… but I felt sure that it could never…'

'Lupin, may I read your letter?'

'Yes, I'll just go back down and -'

'Please. Wait.'

Snape's hands were trembling, his palms damp. He retrieved his own note from his pocket, handed it to Lupin, unable to lift his head.

They turned away from each other, lit their wands, began to read.

_Dear Severus,_

_I apologise again and again for my lack of bravery but I hope this may finally go some way to convincing you why I was sorted into Gryffindor when we started school._

_It is long overdue, my telling you who I am, but I have found it somehow preferable to live with the faintest of hopes that you could reciprocate than the absolute certainty that you could not. Recently I have begun to think that maybe you do not despise me as you once did._

_But you should know who it is who loves you. You know me very well, or at least for a very long time. I am a dark creature as well as a coward. I once almost killed you. You deserve to be loved by better than me but I cannot offer you anything but myself, and that I give freely._

_You have no obligation to reply to this, of course, or to acknowledge me ever again, but I hope that our budding friendship can survive this revelation._

_I love you,_

_Remus Lupin_

_. . . . .  
><em>

_Knowing you as I do, in some ways very well and in others not at all, I can only make an educated guess as to what you will do with this letter._

_My prediction is that you'll read it with a wondering smile on your face. I think you might keep it, and reread it later. You seem the type to not wilfully destroy the written word, even if you dismiss it as the fevered ramblings of an unbalanced mind. I can assure you that my mind is not unbalanced, though. It's probably working better than it has for quite some years - or ever._

_I can imagine your face as you're reading this, thinking _what is the point? _Very well, I will stop prevaricating before you feel compelled to give up reading._

_I'm writing because I'm too much of a coward to tell you to your face that I love you._

They finished reading, turned back to each other. Snape could see Lupin's lips part with a silent gasp, but his eyes were hidden as he stared down at the letter in his hand.

Snape walked over to him.

'Remus,' he said softly.

'Severus,' Lupin replied, and looked up into Snape's dark eyes with his own brown ones that brimmed with tears.

He reached out a shaking hand, brushed away a tear that had begun to wend its way down Lupin's scarred face, and it somehow released the tension that quivered between them.

'Don't know why I'm crying,' Lupin told him with a brilliant smile.

'Have you changed your mind?'

Lupin laughed at that.

'Have you?'

And suddenly there was no distance between them at all, not any more, Lupin's mouth devoured his with a hunger that shocked and elated him and a tenderness that made him tremble.

He had no idea how long it lasted or how it happened that his body had softened and his hands were tangled in Lupin's greying hair. With Lupin's arms around him, anchoring him to the moment all he knew was that he had never felt so alive, so exposed, so open to the world.


End file.
